i6 DIARY OF A SPORTSMAN NATURALIST 



pursuit since the animal was only to be found in the ex- 

 tensive areas of heavy jungle. Some of my work kept me 

 near the outer borders of these tracts, whilst at times I was 

 in isolated small forests out in the agricultural parts of the 

 district, although this was rarer. No bison, of course, came 

 anywhere near these areas. There were, however, plenty of 

 other animals to make acquaintance with. Sambhar {Cervus 

 unicolor) in this thinly populated district were to be found 

 at certain seasons quite near the open cultivated lands to 

 which they were attracted at the periods when the young 

 crops were springing up. Spotted deer or chital {Cervus 

 axis) were numerous. Also that curious antelope, the blue 

 bull or nilgai {Portax pictus) , with khakar, or barking deer 

 {Cervulus muntjac), and pig or wild boar [Sus indicus), and 

 the little four-horned antelope, Tetraceros quadricornis. 

 Bear, the Indian black bear, Ursus labiatus, in the open 

 parts of the district were very plentiful. Amongst the 

 carnivora tiger {Felis tigris) and leopard or panther {Felis 

 pardus), hyena [HycBna striata), wild dog (Cuon rutilans) 

 and, of course, jackal [Canis aureus) were comparatively 

 common ; the first-named difficult to get as owing to the 

 abundance of the herbivorous jungle-folk cattle-killing was 

 by no means common and man-eaters during those two 

 years were rare. 



I remember one occasion, however, when I had strong 

 hopes of seeing my first man-eater. It was during my first 

 year in India, and although I had sat up for tiger on several 

 occasions I had never yet seen stripes. My chief and I had 

 been snipe-shooting in the morning whilst on our way to 

 one of the forest rest-houses. On reaching the latter place 

 about II a.m. a sub-inspector of police came up and reported 

 that two men had been killed by a tiger early the morning 

 before at the railway tunnel about a couple of miles away. 

 A man had gone out grass-cutting later in the day and had 

 come suddenly upon the tiger, who was engaged in eating 

 one of the bodies. 



We decided to go out at once, and having ordered the 

 small elephant to be got ready and as many beaters as 

 possible collected made a hurried breakfast. We had two 

 elephants with us, but unfortunately the larger one was not 

 staunch to tiger, having been badly mauled on some previous 

 occasion in her history. Moreover, in this part of India our 

 elephants were chiefly employed as transport animals, 



